AMHP advocate, Dr. Abdul Qayyum Ahmed, participates in a vigil outside Senator Rob Portman’s office with other Cincinnati faith leaders to express their opposition to the Senate health care bill.
A few years ago, I was visiting family in a country with no health care regulations, and my uncle presented to the emergency room for severe shortness of breath. The triage nurse would not place a simple device on his finger to check his oxygenation until he presented a lump sum of cash that would ensure his ability to pay. A family member had to rush to his home, procure the cash, and bring it to the ER before an evaluation was initiated. As a physician familiar with the classic presentation of a heart attack, it was horrifying to witness every precious moment that slipped by. Thankfully my uncle was stabilized. To this day, I wonder what the outcome would have been if he did not have access to that cash. Unfortunately, in such countries, thousands of people are turned away from emergency care if they don’t have the financial means and potentially face catastrophic outcomes.
Even at its worst, our healthcare system has protections like the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which is a federal law that requires anyone coming to an emergency department to be stabilized and treated, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. Laws and regulations protect people, maintain a certain standard of care, and ultimately save lives.
Much of today’s healthcare debate centers around saving costs and reducing the financial burden for some. Proponents of an Obamacare repeal argue that doing so would help Americans in the long run. As a family physician who works to keep patients out of the emergency room by proactively managing their diseases and risk factors, I worry about how taking insurance away from over 20 million Americans can accomplish this objective.
Aside from the argument that access to preventive care keeps Americans healthy, I fail to see the long term financial benefits of denying health care coverage. Unless we as a nation are willing to maintain and protect the provisions in the EMTALA, we will start turning people away from emergency rooms based upon insurance or financial statuses. This is not how we come out ahead. Who will absorb the costs of the millions of uninsured Americans who show up in ER’s for sore throats, UTI’s, and pneumonias (many of which could have been treated at much lower costs in a primary care's office)? Ultimately, it will become the taxpayers’ burden.
The disastrous plan that was passed in the House, then narrowly defeated in the Senate, may now be up for vote again with the Graham-Cassidy bill. This legislation, like its predecessors, helps the wealthy, already healthy, and well insured. Everyone else suffers just to hand over a political victory.
If Congress truly cares about the health of this country, it needs to live up to its intentions. We need to not only maintain the Affordable Care Act, we need to properly fund legislation to continue providing care to so many constituents.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act, or sabotaging its funding, symbolically presents the same message - you deserve medical treatment if you can pay for it.
Samina Sohail, MD, is a family physician in Cincinnati, OH. As a primary care provider to Ohioans since 2003, she has seen firsthand the benefits of providing health care access through the AHCA to so many previously underinsured.